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The Evil Queen
Queen Grimhilde, also known as The Evil Queen (also known as the Wicked Queen or just the Queen) is the main antagonist of Disney's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the first Disney animated features canon villain. Background Determined to remain the fairest one of all, the Queen becomes insanely jealous of Snow White, the only one whose beauty surpasses her own. She eventually disguises herself as an old woman to tempt Snow White into eating a poisoned apple, in a final attempt to do away with her only, unknowing rival. Depicted in early designs as a fat character, her appearance eventually evolved into a much more sinister, stately beauty. She is generally one of Disney's most iconic and menacing first villains, once being voted the 10th greatest movie villain of all time by the American Film Institute. The Queen was animated by Art Babbitt and the Witch by Norman Ferguson. Her name was given as Queen Grimhilde in some old publicity material and comics, but this is seldom acknowledged by the Walt Disney Company. She is sometimes referred to as the Wicked Queen, while theme parks sometimes refer to her as the Snow Queen (not to be confused with Queen Elsa). The Witch is sometimes referred to as the Old Hag after drinking the aging potion. The Evil Queen is, along with Maleficent, one of the most prominent of the Disney Villains. Personality From the outside, the Queen appears to be calm, regal, and sophisticated, but in reality, this collected and stately facade hides an extremely sadistic, hateful, cold and sinister person. She is ruthless, jealous and obsessive and wants nothing more than to be the fairest in the land. She also has an extreme vanity that made her utterly intolerant of rivals. Being solely focused on the idea of becoming the fairest of all, the Queen does not appear to be significantly involved in governing her kingdom, though the skeletal remains of prisoners in her dungeon point to her being a cruel ruler. In the end, her mad vanity and jealousy of Snow White's superior beauty and the Prince's affections eventually drove her to murderous insanity. She transformed herself into a hideous hag and conjured a poison named the "Sleeping Death" to achieve this end as a sign of her determination and desperation. The Witch, being an alternate form of the Queen, has some of her personality traits, most notably her vanity and unstable jealousy of Snow White, kept intact. However, due in part to the transformation, she has also become more outwardly maniacal and sadistic, constantly cackling insanely as well as once trying to play an extremely cruel joke on her pet raven by making it seem as though she wanted it to eat the poisoned apple. Despite her insanity, she was also extremely intelligent and calculating, wanting to ensure that she does not overlook anything in order to make her plans an absolute success. This trait was especially evident in her stopping herself while gloating about how the poisoned apple will ensure Snow White's eventual demise in order to look up whether there was a cure for the effects of the poisoned apple that would be able to cause her plans to fail. The book My Side of the Story: Snow White/The Queen gives a different portrayal, stating that the Queen was actually very kind to Snow White at first (she even has a portrait of her stepdaughter on one of the walls of the castle), but she gets too wound up in her jealousy, which ultimately results in her untimely end. The book also reveals her, when not in her castle, owning a grocery store (as seen in the last page of the book) and that the Huntsman was a very good friend of hers. She also, according to her explanation, made Snow White a servant in her castle to keep her stepdaughter from being lazy (The Queen also tells Snow White to do chores every day because it's a "good exercise" - this is proven in one scene from the book where Snow White eats some cake, only for The Queen to snatch it away from her stepdaughter, telling her not to eat sweets because she is "still in growth & needs to diet"). Also, according to The Queen, she never asks the Magic Mirror who is the fairest in the land. But the Magic Mirror keeps complimenting on how beautiful The Queen is (in its opinion). In the scene where Snow White first meets The Prince and flirts with him, The Queen watches them from her window with a worried look on her face, concerned about Snow White's safety with an older boy (whereas in the film, she watches them with anger and jealousy of Snow White's beauty). In addition, the Serena Valentino novel Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen paints her in a far more tragic light, that of an extremely broken woman who, due to emotional abuse from her father, was feeling extremely insecure about whether or not she truly was beautiful. It also showed that she did initially genuinely care for Snow White as if she were her own daughter before the king's untimely demise. Appearances Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Jealous of her stepdaughter Snow White's beauty, the Queen forces her to work as a servant in her castle; even in rags and wooden shoes, however, Snow White's beauty shines through, causing the Queen to worry that Snow White's beauty may one day surpass her own. She has such vanity that she consults her Magic Mirror every day, ordering the slave within to reveal the name of the fairest in the land. Every day the spirit says that the Queen is the fairest, and she is content until the mirror informs her that Snow White has finally become the fairest in the land. Outside, as Snow White works, she sings to herself, attracting the attention of the Prince, who is passing by, and they are instantly infatuated with each other. The Queen watches from her window, unseen by the two lovers, and, jealous both of Snow White's beauty and the Prince's affections, closes the curtains furiously. Summoning her faithful Huntsman to her, the Queen orders him to take Snow White far into a secluded area of the forest, where she can pick wild flowers, and kill her. She presents him with a box, in which Snow White's heart must be brought as proof. The Huntsman is reluctant to carry out such a deed, but, knowing the penalty for failure, takes Snow White deep into the forest. Just as he is about to stab the princess, he finds that he cannot bring himself to destroy such innocent beauty and, frantically warning Snow White of the Queen's vanity and jealousy, tells her to flee into the forest. He returns to the Queen, bringing in the box the heart of a pig to fool her. Meanwhile, Snow White finds the Cottage of the Seven Dwarfs and is found by the dwarfs, whom she tells of the Queen's attempts to kill her. They are fearful of the dark magic of the Queen, not least because, Grumpy, not keen on having a woman around the house, refers to her as an "ol' witch", and suggests that she may have discovered them already, have made herself invisible, and be watching them right now. They nevertheless take pity and agree to take her in. That night, the Queen once again consults the slave in the Magic Mirror, who tells her that Snow White is living in the cottage of the Seven Dwarfs and that the Huntsman has brought her a pig's heart after she believes that Snow White is dead in the forest. Furious after realizing that she has been tricked, the Queen descends a spiral staircase, entering a dark chamber filled with arcane and magical artifacts, as well as her pet raven perched on a skull. She decides to go to the cottage herself, disguised as a peddler. Consulting a book on disguises and searching for a formula to transform her beauty into ugliness, she mixes the required potion ingredients (though exactly how she prepared most of them into a tangible form for the concoction can be anyone's guess), such as mummy dust to make her old, the black of night to cloak her clothing, an old hag's cackle to age her voice, a scream of fright to whiten her hair, a blast of wind to fan her hate, and finally a thunderbolt to mix it well. After putting all the ingredients together, she begins her magic spell as she drinks the potion and magically transforms herself from a regally beautiful queen to an ugly old hag, including her hair turning white, her skin and hands becoming wrinkled, her royal attire becoming a peddler's cloak and her voice is changed as well and she declares that it is a perfect disguise. She then decides to dispose of Snow White with a poisoned apple, which will send its victim into the "Sleeping Death". The Witch brews the poison and dips an apple into the brew, turning it black, then, upon her orders, a tempting red, giving the poisoned fruit the appearance of an ordinary, if not exceptionally appetizing in appearance, apple. She then voices her plot to her raven, before having her boastful declarations halted by the possibilities of her schemes facing failure. To ensure no antidote gets in her way, she consults her spell book, quickly finding that the victim of the "Sleeping Death" can only be revived by "Love's First Kiss". This brings no sense of fear or apprehension to her, as she firmly believes the dwarfs, as they would think Snow White is actually dead, will bury her alive. Cackling to herself, she puts the apple in a basket, and walks down through the dungeon below, emerging from the castle's catacombs in a raft. On her way down the catacombs, she passes by a skeleton who appears to be reaching for an empty jug of water and sarcastically asks if he wants a drink before kicking the jug into the skeleton, smashing it to pieces. As she makes her way to the dwarfs' cottage, two sinister vultures see her and, sensing that death is imminent, quietly pursue her. She reaches the cottage and, according to plan, finds that the dwarfs have left and Snow White is alone. Catching her by surprise as she is preparing a gooseberry pie for the dwarfs, the Witch poses herself as an apple giver and offers her the apple, claiming apple pies to be the superior dish and offering the poisoned apple for Snow White to sample. As the meeting occurs, however, Snow White's bird companions spot the vultures darkly observing and anticipating what's to come, indirectly informing them that the Witch has evil intentions. They attack her before Snow White is able to take hold of the apple, successfully delaying the former's plot, though Snow White orders them to leave, as she still believes the Witch to be a harmless peddler. The Witch cleverly uses Snow White's kindness to her advantage and pretends to be shaken from the attack, asking for shelter within the cottage, to which Snow White obliges to. This forces the birds and other forest animals to rush over to the diamond mines and alert the dwarfs of what's happening. Meanwhile, the Witch manipulates Snow White into believing the apple is actually a "magic, wishing apple", capable of making one's dreams come true with one simple bite; offering it in gratitude of fending off the birds. Snow White becomes taken with the idea once the Witch openly mentions speculation that her wish may have something to do with someone she loves, referencing the Prince. Wanting to finally reunite with him, she takes the apple, makes the wish to live a happy life by his side, and takes a bite. In a matter of seconds, she falls under the curse and drops to the floor unconscious. The Witch cackles in joyous victory as a thunderstorm starts to pour rain, declaring she'll now be the fairest in the land and makes her leave to return to her castle, only to find the dwarfs have learned of her villainy and have come to rescue Snow White. The Witch fearfully flees the furious dwarfs, and soon finds herself trapped on the dead end cliff of a rocky mountain, with the two vultures perched onto a nearby tree branch, watching the events unfold. Spotting a massive boulder nearby, the Witch tries to kill the dwarfs by crushing them with it, cackling insanely as she does so. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning strikes the ledge of the cliff, destroying the portion holding the Witch, and causing her to fall hundreds of feet below to her death. The boulder tumbles down after her, crushing her body and ensuring her demise. The dwarfs then look over the cliff to see her lifeless body, and the two vultures fly down the cliff to devour her remains. House of Mouse The Queen made frequent cameos in crowd shots on House of Mouse, mostly in crowd shots with Lady Tremaine from Cinderella. In "Pluto Saves the Day", the Queen (in her hag form) was seen selling poisoned apples to Pete in his plot to cast the "Sleeping Death" spell on Mickey and friends. Her evil plot was used as an advertisement later at the end of the episode. In "The Stolen Cartoons", she gave a visual representation of Daisy's exclamation "The crowd's getting ugly!" by turning into her hag form. Earlier in that same episode, she was seen visiting the Magic Mirror in the lobby, only to immediately by dismissed with "Save it, Queenie. Everyone's fairer than you." In "The Mouse Who Came to Dinner", she was seen sitting with Maleficent, Jafar, Shan Yu, Hades, and Ratigan. The Evil Queen can also be spotted several times in Mickey's House of Villains, usually in her witch form. Other appearances The Queen makes a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. She is seen in her witch disguise, crossing the streets in Toontown to get to the Apple Store with help from Snow White. In Runaway Brain, Mickey Mouse plays a Mortal Kombat-style video game featuring Dopey in battle with the witch. In Mickey Mouse, the Evil Queen appears in the episode "Sock Burglar" as one of the suspects interrogated by Minnie Mouse. Trivia *The Queen is considered one of the greatest movie villains of all time. She was nominated for a place in 'AFI's 50 Greatest Villains list' (along with Stromboli, Man, Lady Tremaine, Maleficent, Cruella De Vil and Ursula; the Disney Villains to make the final list were the Queen (10), Man (20), and Cruella De Vil (39). *The Queen's menace and intensity were considered too frightening for young audiences by some parental group, and the scene in which she transforms into the Witch was initially cut from the UK release. It was voted number 80 in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Scary Moments. * The sequence in which the Vultures watch the Witch fall to her death, then fly down to her body, impressed Sylvia Moberly-Holland enough to inspire her to apply as an Inspirational Sketch Artist at the Disney studio. *The Queen provided the inspiration for many villains that followed, particularly MGM's Wicked Witch of the West and Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. Critics have also noted similarities between the Witch and the cackling, hooded Emperor Palpatine, the villain of the Star Wars saga. Category:Villains Category:Antagonists Category:Main antagonists Category:Parents Category:Snow White characters Category:Female characters Category:Queens Category:Royalty Category:Animated characters Category:Characters introduced in 1937 Category:Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters Category:German characters Category:Disney characters Category:Deceased characters